


tell me when it's over

by fliptomybside



Category: One Direction (Band), Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 13:10:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6806149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fliptomybside/pseuds/fliptomybside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things fall together, then they fall apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell me when it's over

**Author's Note:**

> This is an incredibly self-indulgent alternate ending to [august and everything after](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5598556) because I can't help myself. Title is from Blank Space, un-betaed so all mistakes are mine, please don't let the real people that this is about see it, etc. etc.

They're exactly the same, and as it turns out, that’s the problem, Taylor thinks, methodically scooping cookie dough out of the mixing bowl. There’s something satisfying about a tray of perfectly shaped cookies. Rolling them in her palms is key, even though the dough starts to stick to her skin after a while. It’s hard not to let her mind wander while she’s doing mindless tasks like this, and even four months after Harry leaving her and a month after her leaving Nashville, Taylor can’t stop thinking about it. It’s always breathless at first. It always feels shiny and new when they fall back together, and she hates that she keeps letting it happen, and that Harry keeps making promises they both know he’ll break. 

It was good at first, but August turned into September, then October, then November, then it wasn’t new anymore. Taylor rolls the last scoop in her hands and places it on the shiny baking tray that’s followed her from New York to Nashville to LA. It was good right up until Harry stopped showing up, stopped calling, and the next time she saw him he was splashed all over the internet on a boat with someone she used to know. 

She pops open the oven and the heat is borderline unbearable, even though it’s January. It could be worse, she reminds herself. LA might be hot, but at least it’s devoid of humidity. For all that Taylor loved hiding out in Tennessee, her head feels clearer here, for some reason. There’s smog everywhere, obviously. It is LA, after all. But it doesn’t cloud her judgment like Nashville’s humidity did. She steps back to grab the trays of cookies and slides them into the oven, admiring the perfect rows of dough that, hopefully, will turn out to be edible. They’re some gluten-free recipe that Karlie recommended. Taylor’s trying to be healthy now. _At what cost, though,_ her brain says, and she tries to ignore it, focuses in on cleaning the already gleaming countertops. 

Her house here is impeccably decorated. She spent months working on it, and it looks like something out of a magazine. In a weird way, it pushes her to try harder. To match its perfection. It’s all gleaming appliances and an all white master bedroom and matching en suite and living room fully equipped with surround sound and it’s perfect, except for the part where it makes Taylor feel like an imposter. She tries to shake it off, _pun intended, ha, ha,_ she thinks, but everything feels too big and empty and baking was supposed to be a break from writing, but it’s turned into another exercise in reliving last summer.

She pulls a stool up to the counter and rests her elbows on the countertop, marble cool against her skin. Borns is singing about past lives and Taylor feels a little thrill of excitement in her stomach when she thinks about the possibility of collaborating with him on this album. It’s a relief, being able to write again. It might be on the heels of disappointment, but she’s got a handful of happy songs that feel like Nashville at midnight, and another handful that feel like the floor being ripped out from under her feet.

She hums under her breath, there are half-formed lyrics bouncing around her brain, boys throwing rocks up at windows, love letters in morse code, and the timer wrenches her back to reality. The cookies, Taylor’s happy to note, are picture perfect. There’s satisfaction in following a set of instructions and achieving the intended results. Taylor’s so used to being disappointed and misjudging and crashing and burning that small victories are what’s keeping her head above water.

Caffeine, she thinks, turning the oven off and setting the trays on two cooling racks. It’s the middle of the afternoon, but if she heads out now, the cookies will be a perfect room temperature by the time she gets back.

-

LA is annoyingly small, when it comes down to it. Harry’s two people in front of her in line for coffee, and Taylor hates that she decided to come here today, out of all the coffee shops in Los Angeles, at this exact time. She’s already been photographed once coming in, and if she was, Harry definitely was, and there’ll be whispers of something, no question, and it’s not something Taylor has the mental energy to deal with these days. Even years down the line, people talk. The two of them in the same neighborhood is enough to churn out enough rumors for the next six months. That was the good thing about Nashville, poor judgment and falling into bed with Harry aside. It was easy to hide.

Taylor longs for that kind of escape right now. Harry’s at the register, smiling down at the girl behind the ipad. His dimple pops out and he laughs. She blushes. Nothing’s changed. Taylor wonders if it would be more or less awkward if she just left without ordering anything. She’s not sure if she could sneak out without Harry noticing, or without making a scene. 

She’s an adult, though, or at least she’s trying to be, so she waits her turn in line, orders her iced coffee, and tries to ignore the feeling of Harry’s eyes burning a hole in the side of her head. She slides her phone out of her back pocket and texts Selena, pointedly looks down at the screen as she walks slowly to the other end of the counter. 

_‘behind he who must not be named getting coffee,’_ Taylor types out. She keeps staring at the screen. She knows she’s just imagining the waves of potentially awkward small talk radiating off of Harry. 

He clears his throat, and she doesn’t look up. She’s not doing this with him again. 

“’s been a while, he says, voice clear over the din of the coffee shop. 

Taylor forces herself to look up. Harry’s got his hair pushed back with a pair of sunglasses. There are a few spots dotting his forehead, and his hair looks a bit greasy at the temples, but she can’t help the way her stomach swoops, and she still hates it. 

She bites down on her bottom lip viciously and tightens her grip on her phone as it buzzes in her hands. 

“Yeah? Is that your fault or mine,” she says, and she’s proud of how even her voice sounds. The last time she saw him was Thanksgiving. He re-met her parents, shook hands with her dad, played Scrabble with Austin. They fell asleep together in her bedroom, the full size mattress small for the two of them, but he’d woken her up with a trail of kisses down her stomach, and then it was just a rapid downward slide, and now they’re here. 

Harry has the grace to look embarrassed, at least, and she can see the faint flush on his cheeks when he brushes past her to pick up his order. She looks down at her phone again.

 _‘don’t,’_ Selena’s text reads. Taylor chokes out a laugh, and when she looks up again, Harry’s standing awkwardly in front of her. 

“I hope you’re good,” he says, clutching an iced coffee identical to hers in his hands. They look huge, and Taylor feels herself blush, thinking about how his fingers lit her up, callouses rough against the smooth skin of her stomach. 

“Heard you were working on a new album,” he finishes, and Taylor shrugs, figures Ed must be talking to him again. He always says he’s Switzerland when it comes to the two of them, but Taylor guesses that it was strained when things fell apart this last time. 

“Inspiration struck, what can I say,” she says, and sees the barista put her iced coffee up on the counter behind him. His hawaiian shirt is blinding and tacky and Taylor hates it. Hates the wings of the swallows peeking out where he’s left it unbuttoned, hates that she’s known him for so long that she remembers what he looked like without them. She skirts around him and grabs her coffee, and he’s still standing there, his own coffee sweating in his hands when she turns back around. 

“What,” Taylor says, and she watches as Harry goes to run his fingers through his hair on instinct and encounters the sunglasses, knocking them to the floor. 

It’s second nature, bending down to pick them up, even though she imagines crushing them beneath her flip flop for a split second. She doesn’t let their hands touch when she stands back up and hands them to him. 

“We should talk, sometime. ‘m gonna be in LA for a bit,” Harry says, and Taylor sees red for a second, sees exactly how it would play out. Him in her bed, whispering I love you in her ear, decidedly not talking about how he fucked off, then fucked someone else a few short weeks ago. 

She cocks her head and stares him down, his eyes still green, all wide and guileless like he didn’t leave her over and over and over again. 

“No,” she says, voice still neutral, and she leaves him standing there, slides her own sunglasses back on, and pushes out into the heat.

-

She waits to freak out until she’s in her car. There were still paparazzi lurking outside when she left Alfred, and it took everything in her to look impassive, like she hadn’t just faced Harry Styles for the first time post-quiet, passive-aggressive fallout. Her hands are shaking a little bit as she scrolls through her contacts until she gets to Selena’s name.

“You okay?” Selena’s voice crackles into her ear, and Taylor exhales sharply and shuts her eyes.

“He suggested that we get together and talk, so,” Taylor says, and she hears a crash in the background.

“Are you fucking kidding me—Ni, it’s fine, there’s a dustpan in the kitchen closet,” she shouts, and Taylor can hear Niall mumbling in the background, and Selena closing a door, shutting out all the background noise.

“Sorry, he’s still jetlagged, I guess, and he’s intent on destroying my kitchen,” she says, and Taylor takes a deep breath and forces out a laugh. 

“He’s using jetlag as an excuse for clumsiness now? Okay,” Taylor says, rolling her eyes even though she’s alone in the car.

“I know, right? Anyway, sorry, I hope you shut him down and maybe pushed him a little on your way out,” Selena says. Taylor’s car is still stifling. She cracks the window, but not too much. She’s sure there are still paparazzi lurking somewhere, and with her luck they’ll be able to hear every word.

“I mean, I said no, but it was a public place. It was like one of those weird moments where you’re so angry that you just kind of freeze?”

“Mmm,” Selena hums, and Taylor picks at the frayed denim of her shorts. Her cuticles are immaculate, because she’s trying to channel her nervous energy away from picking them. It’s mostly working. 

“It sucks doesn’t it? Like, you picture that moment so many times, when you’re finally going to get the last word. Eviscerate them like they did to you, and then you just come up blank.”

“I fucking hate it,” Taylor bites out, curling her fingers, pressing her nails into her palm. Her phone’s sweating in her other hand, the cracked window not cutting the heat.

“Sometimes it feels like you’re giving them too much, though. When you do that. You know? Like you’re letting them know the extent that they hurt you.”

Taylor can hear a door click open and Niall’s voice going on about how he’s cleaned up the mess, but Selena must wave him off, because she hears a muffled, ‘shit, sorry,’ and the door swinging shut again.

“Pretty sure the whole world already knows how much he hurt me,” Taylor says with a snort. “And I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve talked it out and gone over every little thing that went wrong.”

“Just because you can talk about why you failed doesn’t mean you can figure it out, or that you’re meant to be together, or even that you can be friends,” Selena says, and Taylor thinks of all the times they’ve had this conversation in reverse.

“I know I sound like you,” Selena says, echoing her thoughts. “And I know it’s hard to hear, but it’s like the Gossip Girl thing, you know?”

Taylor confused for a second. “Uh,” she starts, and Selena laughs.

“Sorry, okay, I read this article a few years ago, I think it was titled “You Are Not Blair Waldorf,” but it was basically like, just because someone has the capacity to hurt you doesn’t mean they’re you’re soulmate. It makes sense, right? How we always fall back on the people who hurt us the most, because if it hurts that much, it must be real. But it’s not,” Selena says. 

Taylor’s skin is prickling in the heat, and she’s lost track of how long she’s been sitting in the car sweating, but it’s definitely been too long. With her luck, there’ll be a story on some website tomorrow, with pictures of her and Harry coming in and out of Alfred Coffee. 

“I know you know,” Taylor says, and she pops her keys in the ignition. “Want to come over for a bit? I just made cookies, and after this, I’ll probably end up eating them all myself if I’m left to my own devices.”

“I got you,” Selena says, and Taylor smiles as she starts the car and flicks the air conditioner on. 

-

California feels softer when Selena’s with her, for some reason. Smaller, closer, more intimate. Less like she’s surrounded by people who are just waiting for her next misstep. 

“How long is Niall staying with you?” Taylor asks through a mouthful of cookie. Selena shrugs, reaching for another cookie. They’ve gone through half the batch, and Taylor feels kind of full, but not quite enough to make herself stop.

“Not sure, he flew in yesterday,” Selena pauses to swallow. “Think he’ll probably stay at mine for a few days, but he said he was going to spend some time with Harry, too. They’re doing some writing for something, I think.”

Taylor resolutely does not flinch, because it doesn’t matter, because she and Harry are done. They just have to learn how to coexist again, how to orbit each other without getting too close. 

“How’re things going with him?” Taylor asks, sitting on her hands. The goosebumps on her skin are a good indication that the air is up too high, but she can’t be bothered to move for the remote. 

Selena smiles, and when she tries to bite her lip to hide it, Taylor laughs.

“Good, then? Took him long enough to get his shit together,” Taylor says, and Selena laughs, too, cheeks red, and Taylor pushes down her jealousy because Selena deserves this more than anyone. Deserves coming home to someone who’s always going to be there, who isn’t going to leave her high and dry again and again. Taylor lost count of all the times Selena curled up next to her in bed, cheeks still wet from crying.

“It’s early, but. It’s nice. Quiet in ways that I’m not used to, but I like it, I think,” Selena says. “It was worth waiting for.”

“You deserve it,” Taylor says seriously, shivering and reaching across the kitchen island for the remote and punching down the air. 

“Don’t know about that, but it feels good being in something that’s stable. Like, realizing that not everything has to be a roller coaster all the time is a revelation, seriously,” Selena laughs, but Taylor knows she’s right.

“A true sign of growing up,” she says. “Sometimes even grand gestures get old, because it feels like those only come after they’ve fucked up.”

Selena nods in response, and they lapse into silence. All Taylor can think about is every time she thought Harry was going to stay, every time she thought it was the real thing. Every time she thought she was the only one, then the texts stopped, and weeks passed, and Harry fell into somebody else. 

“I don’t know how to let go,” Taylor admits into the quiet. Selena sighs and props her chin up with her hands. 

“I don’t either,” Selena says, and it’s not the answer Taylor wanted. 

“I think sometimes you can’t. Sometimes you just take it one step at a time, think about them one second less each day until maybe you only think of them once an hour instead of twenty times an hour. I still think about Justin, though. Even now. I don’t ever want to be with him again, but that doesn’t undo all the years we spent chasing each other, you know?”

“I guess you can’t unlearn people,” Taylor says, and Selena hums in response. “The worst part is I don’t even wish I never met him,” she finishes, and she hates how true it is.

“Don’t wish for that,” Selena says, shaking her head. “Think about everything that came after him that was great, think about all the ways you changed after you broke up and all the ways you’ll change now.”

“You sound like a self-help book, now,” Taylor says, and Selena throws her head back and laughs.

“I read a lot of them during the past few years,” she says, and Taylor suppresses her eye roll. 

“You’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna be great. You are great. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, okay? I know I’m being cheesy, but I don’t fucking care. This is for all those times you told me the same thing. You were right, the whole time, and I’m so much happier than I thought I could be. And I hate that it took me so long to realize that I was holding onto something that made me miserable just because I thought it was meant to be.”

“Love you,” Taylor says, and when her voice cracks a little at the end, Selena reaches across the table and grabs her hands and it’s grounding. Things start to come back into focus, and Taylor squeezes back, probably too tight, but she needs something to hold onto.

-

It’s just bad luck, bumping into Harry on a run. It was bound to happen, she thinks. She knows he’s only a block away from her when he’s actually in LA. 

She’s covered in sweat, her black tank top is old and probably a size too small, and her shorts are green and tiny and she can feel his eyes on them from behind his sunglasses.

“Hi,” he says, stretching out the word like it’ll fill the space between them. 

At least he’s as gross looking as she is, Taylor thinks, squinting in the sun. She wishes she had sunglasses to hide behind. 

“Hey,” she says, pushing her bangs off her forehead. She wonders how quickly she can escape from this interaction without seeming rude.

“Can’t believe it took us this long to run into each other,” Harry says, starting to smile, and Taylor rolls her eyes, because some things don’t change, and Harry’s never been able to resist a bad pun.

“You really need to work on your pun game,” she says, and he laughs, a little too loudly, like he’s starting to realize that they don’t really have anything to talk about anymore, or maybe that they have more to talk about than is appropriate than the sidewalk between their houses in the most exclusive neighborhood in LA. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Taylor’s not sure what for. There are a lot of things, and she doesn’t want to touch any of them, doesn’t want to tread over old ground for the millionth time.

“Okay,” she says, and she watches him pull his shirt up to wipe the sweat off of his face. He still looks good. He still might be the best thing she’s ever seen, even after letting her down more times than she can count.

 _Baby steps_ , she reminds herself. Cold turkey isn’t a thing she can do, not with this. Not with Harry. She still misses it, misses his hands all over her, the way he smiled sleepily at her that first morning after, the way he always said the right thing at the right time and never followed through.

His shirt drops back down, and Taylor drags her eyes up to his face. _Baby steps_ , she thinks as she steps forward and closes the space between them. He still smells the same, Tom Ford and sweat and soap. Baby steps, her brain says gently, and she kisses him.

-

His chest is sweaty and his tattoos are terrible, and Taylor grinds her hips down like she can fuck this out of them, somehow. Like if they just do this one last time, it’ll be out of their systems forever. No more broken promises, no more close calls or near misses. Just this, then a clean break. No fourth chance, no letting him in when she knows how it ends. 

Harry’s nails are digging into the thin skin of her thighs, and he stutters out a breath. His hair still looks greasy, Taylor thinks idly, circling her hips. He’s so, so deep inside her. She knows she’ll feel it tomorrow, can already feel the ache in her thighs, but it’s worth it when she presses her hands down against his chest, thumbs across his nipples and he groans, so deep she can feel it vibrate against her palms. 

They’ve done this so many times that it’s muscle memory at this point, but it still feels new, and Taylor tries to commit all of this to memory so she doesn’t have to miss it. The way Harry squeezes his eyes shut when he gets close, the rough pressure of his thumb against her clit, the way he cants his hips up to get deeper inside her. 

“Taylor,” he groans, and she’ll remember it forever, the way he says her name. _Tay-lah_ , and it sounds like someone else’s name falling from his lips. She bends forward and covers his mouth with hers so he can’t say anything else. They’ve talked enough to fill several lifetimes, and it hasn’t gotten them anywhere.

He digs his fingernails so deep into her skin that for a second she’s worried that he’ll break the skin, but she can feel the way he jerks inside her when he comes and she revels in it, pushes down and rides out her own orgasm, every perfect wave, and promises herself that this is the last time.

-

“This is it,” Taylor says, and she’s still breathing hard, can feel the sweat pooling between her breasts. “We’re done now.”

She sits up and pulls herself out of Harry’s bed. Her running clothes are over by the door, and she knows Harry’s looking at her as she walks over to pick them up.

She turns around to look at him while she’s pulling her shorts on, and he still looks like someone she could fall back in love with, even sweaty, even in need of a shower.

“‘m sorry,” Harry says, sitting up. Taylor wrestles back into her sports bra and reaches down for her tank top, bites down on all the words she’s said before that are waiting on the tip of her tongue.

“I know it’s not enough,” he says, and when she looks at him, he looks sad. There are circles under his eyes and it takes everything in her to limit herself to a nod.

“I’m sorry, too,” she says, “but we’re just running in circles, and I’m not doing it anymore.”

“Okay,” Harry says, and for a split second, Taylor wishes he would fight for it again, even though she knows it’s over, that it’s always going to be over before it even starts. 

“Okay,” she echoes, and bends down to scoop up her sneakers before she closes his bedroom door softly behind her.

It’s still hot outside, and Taylor’s legs feel like lead as she walks down Harry’s driveway. The pavement is hot under her bare feet, and she sure she looks ridiculous, but it feels good to walk away. She’ll see him again, and remember this afternoon and all the days that came before it and the way he says her name, but not like this. 

"Baby steps," she says under her breath, the sun beating down on her back.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [here](http://whatmaddiesaid.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
